With no body and no suspect, Ronald Matthew Kay’s disappearance was a cold case with few leads — until Trevor Evan Asapace had a “crisis of conscience” that prompted him to confess to Regina police.

“I’m very sorry for what happened to Ron; that’s something that shouldn’t have happened,” the 30-year-old said in an emotional address to Kay’s family in court Wednesday. “I only wish they could forgive me.”

As members of his own family also wept, Asapace was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison. With credit for time already served, 14 years and five months remain on the term.

“Mr. Kay was viciously beaten … His body was desecrated, and he was thrown away — never to be found again,” said Regina Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Ellen Gunn, imposing the sentence jointly requested by the Crown and defence. Kay, 32, was reported missing by his sister on Nov. 26, 2013.

Defence lawyer Noah Evanchuck called the case “unprecedented” in his years of practising law, noting his client wasn’t even a person of interest in the disappearance. Then three years later, Asapace admitted to a killing police didn’t even know about.

“He couldn’t live with himself, watching the Kay family search for Mr. Kay … My client felt that, notwithstanding the consequences he would face, that his soul … required him to come forward,” said Evanchuk.

Asapace originally turned himself in to police in December, 2016 on outstanding warrants for attempted shoplifting and breach of probation, only to be found with $580 worth of stolen clothing in his backpack. While in police cells on Dec. 28, he willingly, without being questioned, told officers about killing Kay. Originally charged with second-degree murder, he pleaded guilty Wednesday to the lesser offence of manslaughter.

Listening to the victim-impact statements, Asapace sat with his head bowed and his hands clutched together on the prisoner’s dock.

“I don’t know why he did that to my brother,” said a written statement from Kay’s sister Penny. “I was scared for my brother because I didn’t know what happened to him.”

Ronald Matthew KayRegina Police Service

Family members described the man they knew as Ron, Ronnie or even called “Ronald McDonald” as someone who was happy, outgoing and deeply loved. Although Kay may have been technically homeless, Richard Kotowich told the court Regina was Kay’s home, and he was part of a large community and family. “He had relatives who cared for him,” he said, reading from a victim-impact statement that shared the thoughts of several relatives.

Kotowich — who was spiritually adopted by the Kay family and considered Ron his nephew — said many family members searched in vain for the missing man and for answers after he seemingly vanished. When police issued a missing persons report, it said he’d last been seen at Mosaic Stadium for a Saskatchewan Riders game on Nov. 10, 2013.

“How could they make us wonder for so long? It’s like they threw him away, like he was nothing,” said one relative.

While the family now has some answers, they are tormented at being unable to bury his remains in a Cree-Saulteaux tradition. “Ronald Mathew Kay is a restless spirit, ever wandering, with no place of rest,” Kotowich told the court. “This is an anguish for our family.”

Crown prosecutor Connie Hottinger said Kay, Asapace and others had gathered at a house on the 700 block of Garnet Street in late November 2013. Asapace and others had been drinking heavily and had smoked drugs when a dispute arose. At one point, someone accused Kay of being a child molester or a rapist. Asapace admitted he beat Kay and committed “acts of degradation” on the body, including firing a pellet gun at his groin, urinating on the victim, removing Kay’s clothes and cutting his hair in a bid to “make him unidentifiable.” Kay’s body was then disposed of in a garbage bin, which was rolled down the street away from the house.

Evanchuk said the allegations against Kay “triggered” some emotions in Asapace, who had suffered abuse in childhood (not by Kay.) “He lost control,” the lawyer added.

Asapace, an iron worker by trade, had 19 previous offences on his record, mostly for administrative offences like failing to appear in court. Gunn noted that until recently, his longest sentence was a day in jail.